Slaves being held as Property, like other domestic animals, their Offspring are held as Property, in perpetuity, in the same manner.

     “THE law of South Carolina says of slaves, ‘All their issue and their offspring, born or to be born, shall be, and are hereby declared to be, and remain FOR EVER HEREAFTER, absolute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the mother.” (Jay’s Inquiry, p. 129. See Act of 1740. 2 Brevard’s Digest, 229.)

     In Maryland, “All negroes and other slaves, already imported or hereafter to be imported into this province, and all children, now born or hereafter to be born of such negroes and slaves, shall be slaves during their natural lives.” (Act of 1715, chap. 44, sect. 22. Stroud’s Sketch, p. 11.)

     Similar in Georgia. (Prince’s Dig., 446. Act of 1770.) And in Mississippi. (Revised Code of 1823, p. 369.) And in Virginia. (Revised Code of 1819, p. 421.) And in Kentucky. (Littell and Swigert’s Digest, 1149-50.) And in Louisiana. (Civil Code, art. 183.) In all these laws it is laid down that the child follows the condition of the mother, whoever

the father may be! The same usage, whether with or without written law, prevails in all our slave States; and under its sanction, the slave “owner” very frequently holds and sells his own children as “property,” though sometimes as white as himself.

     “That is property which the law declares TO BE property. Two hundred years of legislation have sanctified and sanctioned negro slaves as property.” (HENRY CLAY; Speech, U. S. Senate, 1839.)

     So also Mr. Gholson, in the Legislature of Virginia: “The owner of land has a reasonable right to its annual produce, the owner of brood mares to their products, and the owner of female slaves to their increase.”

     Thus the perpetuity of slavery grows out of its hereditary transmission, and this again comes from its tenure of chattelhood. If the “legal relation” be valid and innocent, there can be no argument admitted against the right of its perpetuity; and slave property may be held so long as other property is held. The duty of a future liberation would imply the unlawfulness of present possession. Intelligent slaveholders, perceiving this, are careful to fortify their present claims upon human chattels, by enactments seeking the perpetuity of the system.

     In Jamaica, before emancipation, the mixed breed, at the fourth degree of distance from the negro ancestor, were liberated by express law. In the other British West India Islands, a similar custom prevailed. (See Stephen’s West India Slavery, p. 27, and Edwards’ West Indies, book 4, chap. 1.) In the

Spanish and Portuguese colonies, (probably, also, in the French,) a similar usage is believed to prevail. (Vide Stroud’s Sketch, p. 14.) Not so in our North American slave States, where biblical defenses of slavery, on the pretended foundation of Hebrew servitude, forget to define it by the Hebrew usages, and are resorted to in defense against the proclamation of the Hebrew Jubilee! By this process, and by defenses of or apologies for “the legal relation” of slave ownership, the idea of “rights of property” is sustained, which includes the right of perpetuity, of course, and makes it a work of supererogation to emancipate. Refusing to do so, the citizen remains as good as the laws; and the Christian (so he is taught) as good as the apostles and Moses, so far as the slave question is concerned. With “fanatics” he leaves it to attempt being better. Hence, the people (with few exceptions) are “no better than their laws” in this matter.